Luke 22:18

for I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God shall come.

Just as Jesus had told them by His divine omniscience, the disciples found everything, and so could prepare the food for the Passover meal. They bought a lamb whose condition complied with the requirements of the Law. After the close of the evening service they took it up to the Temple, where all the priests were on duty. The man who represented the household slaughtered the animal himself, while a priest caught the blood and passed it on to be sprinkled against the altar of burnt offering. All the ceremonies of the Temple were carried on during the singing of the great Hallel. The two disciples then provided also the necessary unleavened bread, the bitter herbs, and the reddish-brown sauce known as charoseth, which was to remind the people of the bricks of Egypt. Having gotten everything in order, they either returned to Bethany, or, more probably, waited for the rest of the company to come, thus making a total number of twelve apostles, to which number must be added Jesus Himself. He, the Lord, had prepared everything for His Buffering and death. The evil counsel of the Jews would never have been successful if He had not agreed thereto. Not the time that they had deemed expedient, but the day that He had chosen would bring His death. At the appointed hour in the evening, the time when the Passover meal was eaten according to Jewish custom, Jesus took His position on the sofa, He reclined at the table after the Oriental custom which had been accepted by the Jews, and His disciples, the twelve apostles, with Him. His very first words showed that He was deeply moved. He had desired most earnestly, He had longed with a great longing, to eat this Passover meal with them before His great Passion. For He would celebrate no more festival meals with them until the perfection of the kingdom of God would be attained.. He then spoke the customary blessing upon the cup of wine, which was drunk by all the partakers of the meal, and gave it to them with the instruction that they should pass it along and all partake of it, that they should divide it among themselves. And here He declared just as solemnly that He would not drink with them of the fruit of the vine, as the Passover wine was called, until the kingdom of God would come, until the revelation of the Kingdom of Glory, when the Church Triumphant will enter upon its eternal feast. The Passover meal, which the Jews celebrated in commemoration of the deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, incidentally was a type of the eternal meal of joy and bliss in heaven, where the Lord will feed them that are His with heavenly manna and have them drink of the river of His pleasures. Christ, as the true Passover Lamb, was now about to be brought to the slaughter and thereby gain for all sinners the joys of eternal life. For that reason He had the great longing to eat this Passover meal with His disciples, because it introduces His suffering and death. As the Savior of sinners He was consumed with eagerness to earn salvation for all sinners. See Matthew 26:29; Mark 14:25.